As a recognized leader in childbirth education, with a half century of experience, Great Starts offers several opportunities for professional development.

Training to Be a Childbirth Educator:

For aspiring childbirth educators, we offer the Great Starts Workshop: Teaching about Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn. It is a basic teacher education program: a four-day workshop designed to lay the foundation for providing education about the perinatal period. For all the details on this comprehensive program, click here.

We also develop the curriculum for the Childbirth Educator Training at Seattle Midwifery School. For more information about how the two trainings compare, click here.

Childbirth Educator Certification:

As a follow-up to our trainings, Great Starts offers a certification program, since most hospitals and childbirth education organizations require that their educators complete a certification process before beginning to teach.

Our program is the most comprehensive program, designed to ensure the best possible preparation for teaching independently.  For more information, click here for the overview or here for the details.

Continuing Education:

Advanced Teacher Education Programs:

Approximately once per year, Great Starts offers a professional development conference on topics of interest to childbirth professionals.

Hospital and Clinic Consulting

Great Starts also offers a unique service to hospital education programs. We can provide personalized consulting services, ranging for customized childbirth educator trainings to staff inservices, from development of class handouts and educational materials to curriculum design for a comprehensive range of classes related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the newborn. Consulting services are provided by our Education Director, Janelle Durham. For information, email her at jdurham@parenttrust.org

Further details about Great Start's Basic Teacher Education Program can be found on the next page.

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